1. Field of Art
The present invention generally relates to the field of cloud computing and in particular to protecting data maintained in cloud computing environments.
2. Background of the Invention
Modern enterprises typically maintain large amounts of mission-critical data. Formerly, the enterprises tended to store such data locally, on their own premises. An advantage of storing the data locally was that enterprises could maintain control of the data. This control allowed the enterprises to perform data protection tasks such as backing up and archiving the data using applications hosted at the enterprises.
Now, it is common for enterprises to use cloud services to store the data remotely. Users at the enterprise access the cloud-based data via the Internet or another network. While storing data in the cloud provides many advantages, using cloud storage also means enterprises must relinquish some control over their data. For example, while a cloud service typically backs up an enterprise's cloud data, the service might not let the enterprise specify the frequency of the backups or the types of data that are backed up. Similarly, the enterprise might not be able to perform certain types of operations on the data, such as detecting malicious software, that could be performed if the data were hosted on premises. Thus, the enterprises must make certain sacrifices in order to obtain the benefits of cloud services.
As a result, enterprises that store data in the cloud are exposed to certain risks, such as data loss, that they are not necessarily exposed to if they host the data locally. This problem is especially acute for certain enterprises, such as healthcare-related enterprises, that must store sensitive data in accordance with strict regulatory requirements.